Our constant rhetoric -- particularly from Washington -- asserts that we have made progress since the colonialism of King Leopold in the Congo. International criminal justice and human rights are pursued with relish, are they not? Not according to the example of Richard Bruce Cheney.

I have found myself thinking recently about violence against women in two different times and places, and wondering what these stories might tell us about why such brutality has been such a searing, tragic part of human experience for so long.

In just his most recent few books, Adam Hochschild has examined the scandal of the colonial Congo, the anti-slavery movement in Great Britain, and the fighting of and opposition to what we now call WWI.